


Heal You Anyway

by thetranquilteal (dragonBug27)



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, But Warnings Still Apply, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, Think ABOSSA, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 10:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonBug27/pseuds/thetranquilteal
Summary: After eight years of marriage, four children, immigrating to a new country, and a traumatic amputation sustained while deployed overseas, Marsali Fraser loves her husband Fergus just as much (if not more) than the day they wed. So much so, that she would be furious with anyone who dared hurt him… including Fergus, himself.Modern Day AU. One Shot. Inspired by “The Cure” by Lady Gaga.





	Heal You Anyway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoenixreal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixreal/gifts).



“You’re angry.” 

It wasn’t a question. Fergus knew she was angry with him. If not for their eight years or marriage where he had learned to judge her inner emotions by her stance, the shade of her ears or the specific way she would brush the hair out of her face, it was obvious by the set of her mouth and the look in her eyes. 

“Yes,” Marsali confirmed. “I am.”

He continued to watch her face as she tended to his injuries. First his right hand, bruised and bloodied, his skin and bone no match for solid brick, and then his other arm that ended in a stump that was in no better - perhaps even worse - condition. 

He had been so angry when he had done it. Pounding both his fist and stump so hard against the wall had been almost therapeutic - certainly more so than any of the therapy sessions he had been attending. The smeared blood that had been left in his wake was more satisfying to witness than anything else, as though it were physical evidence that he still have something left to give. 

Ever since he had returned home from deployment early and with only one hand, no less, he had been angry. Angry about what had happened. Angry at himself for letting it happen. Angry at everyone else for pretending like nothing had changed. As though he was still the same person he was when he had left.

Jamie was the only one who didn’t make him feel like he was walking this line alone. The much older Scot had been the first to reach it him after it happened 

“Dinna be feart, Fergus, laddie,” Jamie had told him as he laid there in shock, staring at the place his hand used to be while the torn sleeve of his fatigues turned a disturbing shade of red. “I’ve watched milady do this many times.” 

He could remember letting out a pained chuckle and Jamie had kept him on the edge of consciousness long enough for their crew medic to arrive. Almost everything after that seemed like a blur, the only consistent thing being Jamie staying by his side. He trusted him to be there, to be honest and, most importantly, look after his family in his absence.

But it was also Jamie who had pulled him away from the edge tonight and now all he felt was numb. It was as if his body had reached full capacity and, unable to take on any more, had simply shut itself down. Now all that remained of him was an impenetrable barrier, a piece of armour that had wrapped itself tightly around his chest and fused itself shut. 

If not for the way Marsali was now looking at him he might have thought himself already a ghost, nothing more than a memory floating through the halls of their ramshackle two bedroom house. 

His wife was fiercely proud of their home, he knew. Thanks to her never ending effort it was always nice and clean, free of clutter and not even a speck of dust to be seen - certainly very little evidence that six people, including four young children, resided there. Yet all he could see were its faults. The burner on the stove that refused to work. The paint that was peeling away from the corners. The cupboard door that hung diagonally and creaked when opened. The burn mark in the linoleum from the time a tray had fallen from his grasp. The broken high chair that he had promised to fix but couldn't even bear to look at.

“Weel? What do ye have to say fer yerself, Fergus Fraser?” Marsali asked, bringing him back to the present. She stood with one hand on her hip and the other gripping the leftover gauze in the other. Seemingly unsurprised by his silence she continued on. “Receivin’ a phone call from Da sayin’ ye were in need of a ride and some medical attention was no’ the way I expected my Friday evening tae go, I can tell ye that much. So, why I am here in the kitchen wi’ ye - bandagin’ up cuts and scrapes that Claire could have tended to far better than me, by the way -  instead of in bed sleepin’ just like I had planned?”

“I assumed Milord would have told you,” he raised one corner of his mouth in which he hoped replicated a grin but quickly realised his attempted light-heartedness was not going to work when his moniker for Jamie had failed to get any reaction out of his wife at all.

“Oh, he told me but I want tae hear it from you.”

Fergus took in a deep breath and tried to think of what to say. No matter how hard he tried nothing came to mind. Instead he only found himself surrounded by a fog so heavy it infiltrated his mind and settled like cement, intent to fill every crack and crevice in both his mind and heart. Perhaps even his soul.

“Why?” He asked eventually, the single word being the only one that came to mind.

“Why what?” Marsali asked patiently as though it were any other night when they would sit at the kitchen table and share a pot of tea after the children had all gone to bed, and not…

Fergus shook his head slightly and tried to refocus. Once again he had no clue how to answer her. What exactly he had he been referring to? Why didn't his brain want to work? Why he was like this? Why he was here sitting here in the kitchen when he could have- _should_ have- taken care of things once and for all? Why did Marsali care? Why did anyone care? All of the above and more, most likely. 

“Why would you still want me?” He finally decided upon.

“Why would I still want you?” Marsali repeated back to him.

“ _Oui_ ,” he nodded hoping, praying, that she understood his words even when he didn't.

“Tell me then, husband,” Marsali crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at him, “what makes ye think that I wouldna want ye?”

“I don’t know, I... I don’t know what to say to you, Marsali.”

“Just tell me what ye think! Tell me how ye feel! I canna read yer mind, Fergus! I canna help ye if I dinna ken what is going through yer heid!!”

She whipped her arm up and slammed her closed fist on the table, the impact making his jaw drop and words that he had forgotten even existed spilled out of his mouth at a rate he had no hope of controlling.

“I have no job, no career. I have no prospects. No future! All because I have _no hand_!”

“It’s no-”

“I cannot give you or _les enfants_ what you deserve,” he grasped onto her hand with his own and squeezed hard, his desperation for her to understand overriding any pain his action caused. “Not a house big enough for everyone to have their own room, not a car that you could drive for more than a few hundred kilometres without worrying that it will break down, or even an anniversary gift that you so deserve. I cannot even provide you with money so that you might get these things for yourself.”

“I can live without those things,” she said simply as if they were of no consequence, as if their neighbours didn’t judge the state of their house or people didn’t whisper as they walked around the supermarket filling their shopping trolley with all they could afford on their measly budget, “but I canna live without you.”

“Nor can I,” he whispered as he shrank back into his seat and his grip on her loosened. “I cannot protect you, _any of you_. I could never live with myself if anything were to happen and now with Henri-Christian... Don’t you see?”

“See what?” Marsali’s face had hardened at the mention of their youngest son and now she was practically growling, the fire in her eyes enough to make even the most fearsome predator take a step back. Born with a rare form of dwarfism, their son had been the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons and Marsali was all too ready to snap at anyone who dared make a fuss. That apparently included him.

“That you would be better off without me. You could remarry,” Marsali pulled her hand away sharply as though she had finally realised just what he was - or, more specifically, what he wasn’t. “Find someone who’s _whole_ , someone who can look after you - all of you. I have seen... the things I have seen, Marsali, not only during the war but when I was growing up on the streets of Paris - you must understand. The thought of something like that happening... I would do anything to prevent it. _Anything_.”

Marsali turned and walked over to the sink to wash her hands with the aromantic hand wash Claire had lovingly made from the things that grew in her garden. She stood there longer than he knew she really needed to and when she finally reached out for the hand towel he was ready for her to turn around. She walked towards him and he prepared himself to be kicked him out of the house and onto the curb just like he deserved.  

What he wasn’t ready for was for the way she reached out and gently pulled him out of his seat.

Wordlessly, she guided him down the hall to their bedroom. He simply stood there as she stripped down to her bra and panties before she moved on to him, first pulling off his t-shirt and then undoing his belt. His pants dropped to the floor and he automatically stepped out them without thinking. Feeling freer than he had felt in a long time he floated alongside her to the bed and allowed his wife to lay him down on his back.

“Just say yes,” she said as she swung her leg over him slowly and straddle him so gently he could hardly feel the weight of her.

She watched him carefully and waited.

All it took was the slightest nod of his chin for her to bend down and kiss him softly on the lips. There was nothing sexual about the way she was touching him yet it was more intimate than anything he had ever experienced. 

Right then and there, he felt his chest cracking open. Not just the armour that had wrapped itself around him but that which laid underneath it. He gasped into her mouth and raised his arms so that his forearms cradled her torso, suddenly desperate just to touch her in any way he could. The feeling of her skin against his did something to him that he never thought possible. Not anymore. Goosebumps covered him from to toe as his body came alive and she kissed him harder this time, conveying the message that she wasn’t leaving nor was she ever going to let him leave her. Not now.

How could he have ever forgotten how determined she was?

On any other occasion he would happily surrender himself to her in the bedroom but this time things seemed different. He knew they were different. He pushed up and kissed her back. The sound that was emitted from the back of her throat at his action prompted him to move again, this time up and over so that she was now beneath him with his bandaged hand and stump on either side of her head. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled until he dropped all of his weight onto her. 

“I’m yours,” she growled at him, “and you are mine. I will _never_ not want you.”

A sob escaped him and she kissed him again. This time they didn’t stop, instead kissing and touching each other wherever they could. They removed each others underclothes without losing contact and she gasped as he slid slowly inside of her. He held still for a moment, relishing in the feeling of having her wrapped around him before moving slowly, the warmth of her centre spreading throughout the rest of his body. He considered himself a humble man but in times like this he proved to be more selfish than anyone. He let himself go, trusting that she would catch hold of his soul and hold on tight.

It wasn’t until they were both sated and gasping for breath that their rocking ceased and they shifted themselves into a more comfortable position where neither was on top of the other but instead laying side by side, him all the while still inside her.

“I dinna mind,” she whispered and Fergus turned his head to see her more clearly. “If yer angry then be angry. Smash things - I don’t care what just so long as it’s not yerself. I don’t need things, Fergus. I just need _you_.”

She blinked and he watched as a teardrop escaped, making its way down the side of her nose. Her reached out to catch it with the pad of his thumb before it made its way any further and brushed his hand over her porcelain skin, made even more pale by the soft moonlight shining through the window. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, the pain in his chest increasing tenfold at the sight of more tears following the first.

“Don’t be sorry,” she answered hoarsely but firmly. “Just be here. With me.”

“Always,” he promised and pulled her light form tighter against him until there was nothing between them at all, not even a single wisp of air. He felt her relax into his hold and squeezed tighter still. “Always.”

In that very moment he meant it, and he knew Marsali did too.

All he had to do was say 'yes' and she would be right by his side. Even if he said he was okay, she was going to heal him anyway.

 


End file.
